Dreamer's Throne

“I have to say, I agree with Erik,” Maroc said, taking a subtle step to the right that put him squarely between Obe and the room’s exit.

The other adventurers all shared glances as they spread out, making a half circle around Obe and Gorn that blocked off their escape. From the practiced ease with which they moved to seal the exit, it was clear this wasn’t their first time doing something like this. While Obe knew that the world of adventurers was a brutal one, full of backstabbing and betrayal, he had never imagined it would happen to him

His face hardening, Obe glanced at Gorn but saw that his companion’s gaze was strangely hazy, almost as if he was unconscious. Gorn had been acting strange ever since they’d found the ghoul nest the first time, and Obe was starting to worry. This wasn’t the time for either of them to be spacing out, however, and remembering the strange fainting spell that had overtaken the other gang members, Obe grabbed Gorn’s arm, afraid he would keel over. Shaken out of his stupor, Gorn’s eyes suddenly sharpened and he looked around, shocked by the sudden change in the situation. It only took him a moment to figure out what was going on, and with a flash his daggers appeared in his hand and he stepped close to Obe’s side.

“What do you want?” he demanded, glaring at Maroc and Erik.

The two adventurers looked at each other and smiled, seeing the same idea in each other. Despite the small smile that crossed Erik’s lips, there was nothing friendly about the way he looked at Obe and Gorn.

“Give us the nest stone and you won’t suffer needlessly,” the one-eyed adventurer said, lifting his sword and pointing it at them.

Shocked by his bloodthirsty tone, Gorn stiffened and anger crept up his neck, causing his face to flush red.

“Are you threatening us?” Obe asked, taking a step backward and pulling on Gorn’s arm.

With a wave, Maroc commanded his team to step forward.

“What does it look like to you? Maybe you don’t understand the situation you’re in. We’re taking the nest stone. Which means we can’t leave you alive. But don’t worry, we’ll let everyone know how incredibly heroic you were in the fight against the ghouls.”

As the gravity of their situation sank in, Gorn and Obe glanced at each other. Both of them were strong fighters, but fighting against eight trained adventurers was beyond hopeless. There was no way they could win, and even if they did fight, they would be lucky if they could even manage to take down one of their enemies. Swallowing, Gorn wracked his brain for a way out, but nothing came to mind. Strangely, he found himself wishing for that sixth sense which occasionally popped up in his head, but it was as silent as the grave, just like it’d been for the last few days.

Next to him, Obe was sweating, his hand still wrapped around the nest stone. Tempted to shift it to his other hand so he could wipe his palm, he didn’t dare, in case the greedy adventurers used that opportunity to attack. If the nest stone hadn’t been impossibly hard, he would have threatened to crush it then and there, but there was no way he would be able to scratch it, much less destroy it. Taking a step back, a shadowy figure appeared in his vision and he jumped in surprise, his head snapping over. Standing against the wall, Viper, who had been forgotten again in the fervor over the nest stone, once again came to everyone’s attention.

“What about him?” Maroc asked Erik.

“What do you mean, what about him?” Kolz said, sneering. “He’s dead like the other two.”

“Agreed,” Erik said, his face solemn. “If we’re doing this, we’re doing it all the way. It’s nothing personal, Viper. Just consider yourself unlucky.”

“Unlucky? On the contrary,” Viper’s raspy voice set everyone on edge.

There was something off about the robed adventurer, and as his voice bounced around the room everyone felt their hearts beating slightly faster. Slowly reaching up, he pulled his hood down, revealing the crimson mask he wore. A white flower was etched into the side of the mask, and Gorn’s eyes widened imperceptibly as he caught sight of the rainbow sheen that flickered across the petals.

“If you wish it, I will save you,” Viper said, looking at Gorn and Obe. “But the cost will be the stone in your hands.”

Before Obe could collect his wits enough to speak, Estella burst into laughter. As her laughter faded, she took a step toward Viper, her face warped with a twisted glee.

“You? Save them? You’re going to have a hard enough time saving yourself in a moment.”

Ignoring her, Viper continued to look at Obe and Gorn. Though they couldn’t see his face, his body language was completely calm, causing a feeling of hope to appear in Obe’s heart. Glancing sorrowfully at the nest stone in his hand, he was about to try and bargain when Gorn suddenly grabbed it from him, tossing it to Viper.

“If you can save us, it’s yours!”

Seeing the stone flying through the air, Estella let out a shout and darted forward, her body blurring as she pounced. One of her daggers cut toward Viper while her other hand reached for the stone. Her action was so quick Viper hadn’t even moved when she neared the nest stone, and a victorious smile appeared on her face, only to freeze when a crimson mask appeared in front of her.

Somehow, Viper moved toward her without seeming to move at all, as if the distance between them had just been suddenly shrunk down to zero. His head tilted to the side, his mask slipping past her dagger and continuing toward her. With her attention split between the nest stone and Viper, there was no way for Estella to react to the abrupt attack and, with a flash of silver, Viper’s long blade slid through her neck, its speed allowing it to sever her spine without any resistance. With a flick of his wrist, her head separated from her body, tumbling through the air.

The shocked silence was broken by the sound of the nest stone thudding into the ground and bouncing against the wall, but Viper didn’t even look at it. Standing next to Estella’s crumpled body, he cleaned the blood from his silver blade with another flick of his wrist, his cold gaze sweeping over the other adventurers as her head bounced to a stop at Kolz’s feet.

“Estella!”

Letting out a scream, Kolz was going to rush forward but Maroc grabbed him, his expression grim. A quick glance at the Farsight team showed that they were just as nervous. He hadn’t actually seen Viper move during the attack that killed Estella, which meant their new enemy was a stronger Awakened than he was. Fury burned in him, but a cold thread of caution ran through it as well.

“We need to gang up on him. That’s the only way we’ll be able to stop his speed,” One-Eyed Erik said, his expression terrible.

While he was right, every single person in the room knew that at least one more adventurer was likely to die before that tactic worked, maybe more. As for Obe and Gorn, that flicker of hope they’d felt was starting to grow into a trickle. Looking between Viper and the two adventuring teams, they wet their lips, trying to decide if they should team up with Viper. If they did, there was a good chance the three of them could actually survive this fight, though it was a chancy thing.

“You should leave when you get the chance,” Viper said, speaking to the two Ghoul’s Tooth lieutenants. “Things will get hectic in a moment, and when that happens, run.”

“We aren’t afraid,” Obe spat, the tremble in his voice revealing his lie.

“I am aware. But I was hired to make sure you returned unscathed, so leave this to me.”

That revelation set off waves in the hearts of everyone listening. Gorn and Obe shared a glance, their thoughts going to Garrett. The rest of the adventurers were also thinking about Garrett, but with an entirely different emotion. Fear began to appear in their hearts, shaking their confidence. If the crippled young man who hired them had been able to predict they would turn against their employer, certainly he would have hired someone who could handle all of them. The fear that grew froze their muscles and the room entered a tense stalemate.

The smell of blood was strong in the room and was growing stronger, but Viper showed no reaction at all. Taking a small step forward, he shifted his body to pull the attention of the two adventuring groups toward the side of the chamber, naturally creating an avenue for Gorn and Obe to make it to the long crack. As much as the adventurers wanted to stop them, Viper’s attention lay like a blade across their necks, and they all had the feeling that if they so much as twitched, they would find their heads missing.

Seeing Obe and Gorn vanish into the crack from the corner of his eye and realizing they were in between a rock and a hard place, Maroc suddenly swore and stepped forward, his gaze turning vicious. When his head didn’t fly off, the spell broke and the others let out a small sigh of relief. There were still seven of them, and now that they were thinking about it, unless their opponent was in the shaper stage, there was no way he’d be able to survive against them.

“Send three of your men to go slow those two down while we kill this guy,” Maroc spat, his attention never leaving Viper.

Furious at being tricked, Erik waved for his men to go and stepped up next to Maroc.

Before the three adventurers from the Farsight team could make it to the crack, Viper finally spoke, his voice drawing everyone’s attention.

“I have to thank you. I was honestly at a loss as to how I was going to salvage this situation, but you’ve brought the solutions straight to me.”

“What are you babbling about?” Erik asked, his one eye watching Viper’s sword hand closely.

“Am I babbling? I wonder if I’m starting to develop a tendency toward monologuing,” Viper mused, his head tilting slightly as if he was thinking about it. “Regardless, I’m talking about them.”

A scratching sound from the dirt roof above them was the first sign that something was wrong, and as the adventurers looked up in growing horror, they saw two ghoulish creatures looking at them from the ceiling. Yells rang out in the room, accompanied by screams of pain as one of the three Farsight adventurers collapsed to the ground, both legs shredded by the sharp claws that erupted from the earth underneath him.

The room descended into absolute pandemonium as the monsters struck, and with a flash Viper’s silver blade added to the chaos, stabbing into Maroc’s chest. Sparks flew as the tip of his sword skittered off of the thick chainmail the silver-haired adventurer wore. Sent stumbling by the attack, Maroc lifted his own short sword, at the same time trying to let out a warning shout. Unable to manage more than a coughing wheeze, he could only watch in horror as that silver blade reversed course, cutting through Amer’s wrist, sending his hand and axe flying.

In the scuffle the torches were dropped and tramped out by feet, causing the already dim chamber to be plunged into complete darkness. Already terrified, the darkness added a new level of fear and the adventurers could only flail about themselves with their weapons. Blades clashed with armor as they fought, their minds sinking into combat madness, so shaken by fear that they were unable to tell the difference between friend and foe.

“Get back! Get back against the wall!”

Hearing a shout, Kolz, who had fallen to the ground, scrambled forward, hoping to find a wall without running into one of the ghouls. Feeling a limb, he let out a roar and slashed out with all his strength, blanching as his sword bit through leather armor and cut deep into someone’s chest. Realizing he’d just attacked one of Erik’s men, he swiftly struck out again, afraid of a counterattack. His breath was ragged as the pained cry of the man he had cut faded, life leaving the body in front of him.

Covered in blood hidden by the darkness, he scrambled over the body, finally reaching the relative safety of the wall. There was no light in the entire room, and there was no difference between having his eyes open and closed, so he screwed his eyes shut as he pressed back against the wall, trying desperately to get his breathing under control. Feeling like a long claw was about to come out of the darkness at any moment, he heard a scraping sound near him and yelled out.

“Stay back!”

“Kolz!”

Maroc’s voice came from the other side of the room, causing him to turn his head.

“I’m near the entrance, can you…”

Cutting off with a gurgle, Maroc’s voice fell silent and the scraping sound suddenly stopped, only to be replaced with a terrified scream ending with a crunching sound. Horror completely seized Kolz as silence fell over the chamber. Too afraid to even breathe, Kolz stared around him at the darkness until a soft sound in the center of the room got his attention. There was a scraping sound and a spark lit a torch. A figure dressed in dark robes lifted the torch up, revealing the absolute carnage in the room.

With soft steps, Viper walked forward until he was in front of Kolz, crouching down to bring himself to the adventurer’s eye level. Behind him, six strange creatures lurked silently, adding an even greater sense of fear to Kolz’s already overtaxed mind. The monsters looked like ghouls from their powerful legs to the long, blade-like claws on their hands and feet, but what truly terrified him were the large flowers that appeared where their heads should have been. Five glistening petals shimmered with an entrancing light, almost making him miss the jagged teeth that ran along the edge of each of the petals.

“Y… you… who are… who are you?”

Unable to process the sight of monsters working together with an adventurer, and terrified beyond reason, Kolz wasn’t even able to muster a defense as the crimson-masked man lifted his sword.

“Someone you shouldn’t have messed with,” Viper replied with a shrug, the flower on his mask flashing with a rainbow light.